Sniff! Our First Home is on the Market

A and I became home owners in 2011. We thought there were three reasons to buy a place we could call our very own.

1. We were expecting our first child to arrive in April 2012. So...parents need to own homes, right?

2. We were both going to turn 30 soon and felt like owning a place was one of the things 30-somethings generally did
3. The market was good for buyers since it hadn't bounced entirely back since the 2008 recession

Now we are looking to sell our first place and I feel a bit sentimental about it. This is the home we had both our kids, their birthdays, their first steps and first words,  A and I had so many first fights, so many first kiss-and-make-ups, so many extended family and friends' reunions.

News is - we are moving to the Bay Area soon. A moved last week but I'm still working in Chicago and stayed back with the kids. I am not a winter person at all and LOVE the idea of moving to the Bay Area so feeling very positive about the impending change.

At the same time, I want to keep the images and memories of our first home together etched in my brain and heart forever.

Good news is, we have a potential buyer and are already under contract. Fingers crossed that all goes well. (A and I are desperately trying to prevent the kids from marking all the walls or making puddles of you-know-what on the carpets :-))))

Pictures! Oh and we are living clutter-free these days. No, we haven't packed away our things yet, we just live clutter free and it feels so great.

Ok...pictures!

View of our Lincoln Park building from the bus stop right across

Our living room...where the kids scribble all over with (washable) markers

Living, book-nook in left corner and dining room. Dining tables = memorable conversations

Kitchen. So many onions, garlic and coriander...

A and I's bedroom.Where the kids climb into bed with us.

Master bath

Nursery...for story time, playtime and sister pillow-fights

Kids' bath. Rubber duckies and ugh! potty training memories.

Sears or Willis tower

Lobby.

We will all miss you, dear home. Thank you for being strong, sturdy and absorbing all our emotions through these intense years.

Happy mommy day, y'all

Frozen in Chiberia

If there was ANY reason you ever envied me (admit that you want my Hollywood hair and Roman nose), you can erase all of that envy this week. 

I am currently living in the hellhole of a city fondly nicknamed Chiberia by news stations. 

I've experienced the snowmageddon, snowpocalypse or snowzilla of 2010 but Chiberia? That's a whole new level of brrrr.

YES! You got it right, Watson. Named after Siberia. That very place that has somehow never been on your '100 must-see-places-before-I-die' list. Because once you go there, you WILL die of the cold and then you won't be able to successfully complete your list. HA!

Good news is that since everybody who is even partially sane is staying home today, I asked a bunch of my Chi-town friends to send me phonecam pictures of what they are seeing right now outside their windows.

Here's a snapshot of what they most obligingly shared. Mind you, this is deceptively beautiful snow but horrifyingly, mind-numbingly dangerous minus 15F ie minus 26C weather.

Sort of like how drop dead gorgeous women are all evil witches in reality. Look but don't you dare touch. Something like that...

Thank you so much, my dear friends, for sending me pictures so promptly!

Pictures: 

Andersonville

Roscoe Village-1

Roscoe village-2

Bucktown

Logan Square

Lakeview 

Streeterville (view from 23rd floor, can you spot Lake Michigan?)

Lake Michigan frozen and iced over this early morning, my friend said it looked like it was 'smoking' 

Old Town -view from 19th floor 

The Loop - view from 27th floor

Lincoln Park-1

Lincoln Park-2 

Lincoln Park-3

Bronzeville

Montgomery, IL

Just to boast that 'my snow is bigger than your snow', I requested a few special guest pics from my cousin in neighboring Michigan. Things are just as bad there, looks like.

Royal Oak (suburbs of Detroit)

And a few pics from a friend in Canada, who has thigh-high snow in her backyard. Yikes 

Oakville, near Toronto

And none of this is half as bad as Grand Forks, North Dakota, where another cousin lives. The temperature is just as bad and wind chill plus driving conditions are even more challenging than in Chicago. 

They can even boast of unique atmospheric occurrences out there. It was so cold, a rare sighting of a sun dog appeared. Wikipedia says that a sun- dog (or sundog), mock sun or phantom sun,scientific name parhelion (plural parhelia), is an atmospheric phenomenon that creates bright spots of light in the sky, often on a luminous ring or halo on either side of the sun. 

Can you see the twin rainbows on either side of the sun? 

This is a far cry from my hometown, namma Madras where the temperature is currently a sunny 25C or 77F and folks are donning their monkey caps because they feel cold. Ah well. I was once exactly like them! 

Monkey cap image

Stay warm, folks. And visit Chicago sometime. In the summer.

A's bike ride - Before the event

A is going on a bike ride this Sunday to help raise money and research a cure for epilepsy. 

Some burning questions I have at this stage are:
- Will A finish the 25 mile bike ride?
- Will he strike a pose good enough for me to create the caption contest that I am DYING to create?
- How tired will he be?
- How sweaty will he be? Gross.
- Will it rain? Or shine? 
- Will he be able to pedal fast, drink water from his bike-bottle and listen to his favorite music all at the same time?
- Who all will contribute to his cause? No pressure.
- How much will he be able to raise by Sunday?
- Can we use that money towards an amazing dinner splurge on Sunday night?
- Will S want to ride her trike alongside her appa?

If you guys are my Facebook friends, that means I have already reached out to you to contribute. 

What are you waiting for, HUH?!
(no pressure)

The note on the car

This is what the neighbors had left on our car this morning. 

Living in India teaches you to be watchful, wary, skeptical and hyper-alert. Since moving to the U.S, I've slowly become the opposite. Life in a condominium in a decent neighborhood is usually safe. 

Sure, there is no gate. We don't have a picturesque garden or a mango tree bursting with juicy, ripe mangoes, waiting to be stolen by street urchins (or by the neighbor who blames it all on street urchins). There is no security guard or night watchman with a big stick who wakes you up with his constant clanging at the gate. 

But there is no vendor, milkman, mailman, cleaning lady or guest who will suddenly knock on your door or walk in to your home, either. Every visit is planned for and anticipated. Everyone needs to be let into the building. They call from the lobby phone and the resident decides whether to buzz the person into the building or not.  It's almost the norm to forget to lock the condo/ apartment front door or balcony door because there is a certain amount of safety and security taken for granted. 

I've always taken care to lock all doors before going to bed but really done nothing more than that to 'stay safe'. I've been slacking off a lot on the home alarm system, hardly turn it on these days. 

After this note, and a follow-up email from our building management folks, A and I resolved to turn on the home security system everyday and night. 

Because it's just plain old-fashioned common sense. 
You never know what's out there. 
Or who. 
The world is full of crazy folks, you know.
Stay safe, people. Check under the bed and behind the curtains.

#paranoidmom

Old MacDonald had this farm

Ee ai ee ai o

And on this farm he had some Canadian Geese, 

Ee ai ee ai o

With a goose poop here and a goose poop there

Here a goose poop, there a goose poop,

Oh I can even see some gosling poop,

Ee ai ee ai o

Old MacDonald had this farm
Ee ai ee ai o

And on this farm he had some ponies

Ee ai ee ai o

A black pony here and a brown pony there 

and Precious asked if they were both puppies

Everywhere a pony (or perhaps a puppy?)

Ee ai ee ai o

Old Mac Donald had this farm
Ee ai ee ai o

And in this barn he had a piggie

Ee ai ee ai o

Here a fat piggie, sleeping in a corner

Precious, disappointed, asked me 'piggie... oink?'

Everywhere I see only the slothful piggieeeeeeeee

Ee ai ee ai o

Old MacDonald had this farm
Ee ai ee ai o

And in the main barn there were no animals

Ee ai ee ai no?

With a video game here and a tractor there

With a John Deere product placement everywhere 

Ee ai ee ai ugh!

Old Mac... You know this...sing aloud, people

Ee ai ee ai o

And on this farm he had some chickens

Ee ai ee ai o

Finally, a cluck cluck here and a cluck cluck there

But Precious screamed 'KIKI (sparrow)bird!!!'

Here a sparrow there a sparrow near the green bin

We only care about the common sparrowwwww

Ah well Old MacD's farm... barn... @ the Lincoln Park Zoo, we'll be back.

Poet's disclaimer: I have ranked content higher than rhyme scheme so if you are singing along (admit it, you totally were!), your tune and rhythm may have steered off-course a bit. It's ok. 

LOTR at the Ravinia festival

It all began when A's office was selling tickets to the annual Ravinia festival held every summer in Chicago's Northern suburbs. 

A hard-core Lord of the Rings fan, A jumped at the thought of an LOTR concert and bought tickets. Not just the usual picnic-in-the-lawn tickets, but Pavilion tickets, with a built-in chair for each person. Fan-cee and not even crazy expensive!

Yes! The very-talented Chicago Symphony Orchestra was going to play the soundtrack for the second film in the epic trilogy- and we were going to watch experience the show LIVE. 

I was excited but not over the moon or anything. I truly love LOTR but am not a die-hard fan.

Instead, I started wondering about whether we should attempt to take Precious with us and make her sleep in the stroller...so she can sleep under the stars and you know, I could blog happily about it. Thankfully, I read on the Ravinia website that no kids under 7 were allowed into the Pavilion so whew! That erased all scary visions of little S screaming and we being asked to leave ASAP. 

I felt liberated to NOT have a choice.

So I arranged for my sitter H to show up, made and packed some burgers and ran out the door, ready to get lost in a fantasy-adventure world full of hobbits and Gollum.

We drove up with our friends M&A (they are lawyers but not that they deal with either mergers or acquisitions, really). 

The show was simply breathtaking. Live music played by one of the best orchestras in the world made a huge difference. A and I switched between being glued to the screen and then glued to the orchestra. I've watched the Twin Towers several times but no previous experience was a patch on this.

Sméagol/ Gollum- My favorite character! He is SO psychologically complex. He incessantly talks to himself, refers to himself and his alter-ego using the 'we' form and uses the double plural - 'birdses, hobbitses' - making him extremely unique and interesting.  

Can't wait for the third movie to play in Ravinia next year. 

The Roscoe village burger-fest

Took place a couple weeks ago. Yum yum yum! Top restaurants showed off their best burgers in stalls. The veggie sliders were delicious. 

I love that Chicago is such a foodie city. and I super love that being vegetarian is such a cool fad now. Thanks to this phenomenon, I do NOT belong to a generation that needs to pack Puliogare and curd rice in zip loc bags before heading out the door. Whew!

A Chinese-American wedding

Our friends D&B's wedding was held at the Rockefeller Chapel in the University of Chicago campus area. There is something about churches that make me feel calm and serene- maybe it's the high ceilings... Maybe it's the earthy colors. 

This is the chapel

I need a new camera. This pic doesn't do it justice

When A, S and I got there ten minutes late for a 4 PM wedding, we panicked, displayed a fine show of hysterics and I felt a tiny bit guilty for spending five extra minutes at home painting my toenails a different color at the last minute. Hey-toenails ARE important! Come on- it is summer. A gave me a fine lecture about how this isn't an Indian wedding and how we need to be more on time and how no one cares about my silly toe nails and blah blah yadda yadda...Men. BAH!

As we climbed... no, clambered up the stairs to enter the chapel, the kind photographers told us "you're fine, they aren't here yet" and we slowed down. Whew! 

This is what we sat behind

 And this is what was behind us

Gorgeous 

At this point, S, of course, started asking for milk. She is 14 months old. So she does NOT tap me on the arm and politely ask "Amma, may I have a spot of milk, if you please?". Instead, she launched into full-on 'WTF is wrong with you, my incompetent parent-nincompoops?! Can't you SEE that I need milk? And I need milk NOW' type behavior. She started yelling "PAI! PAI!", which is what she calls paal- the Tamil word for milk. To her credit, she wasn't really screaming, just saying. But in a deadly-quiet church where you could hear a mosquito fart, a 14-month old sounds like a friggin banshee. 

This is when all heads turned towards us. Most people smiled with "aww! she is so cute" expressions. I smiled in response and woman-handled (is that a word?) my toddler out. 

Glorious freedom

S spent most of the remainder plucking flowers and yanking out grass. 

Oh and chasing shadows

Spot the toddler trying to wriggle free from the mom's deadly grasp.

 A bus passed by and S started to run towards it waving Hi and blowing kisses. 

All's well that ends well. D&B were officially married, exchanged vows and crap! I totally missed the "you may now kiss the bride" part. THE PRICE OF PARENTHOOD, people. 

Hope you can't see their faces cos I'm trying to protect their privacy

The stunning couple walked past us towards their limo and we showered flowers on them. Almost Indian, I must say. Not the limo part, the flowers part. The entire ceremony (whatever I saw with A's comments peppered in) was more contemporary American than traditional Chinese and was elegant, graceful and very touching. 

CONGRATULATIONS, you two, and see you around.